FDR stated this one best when he said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Probably 90% of the general public in this great country of ours do not even have a rudimentary understanding of ecology, especially the ecology of large herbivores in North America like the whitetailed deer. They are simply afraid of what they do not understand. They cannot fathom that by far the most humane and responsible way to deal with deer populations in suburban areas is by hunting them. They can only see armed hunters as a threat to their peace and tranquility, and deer as a beautiful unspoiled postcard backdrop to their otherwise human-centered world.
They feared the bear and the wolf and allowed them to be shot and trapped to near total extirpation in the lower 48 states. Once the large predators were gone, the deer had no natural predators and population control was passed to the only remaining dominant predator--humans. Now the deer are overpopulating suburban areas where hunting is curtailed or prevented altogether. Suburbs now resort to expensive and ineffective trapping and transporting of deer in extremely poor condition due to disease and starvation in some locales. This, in their blind eyes, is more humane than "slaughtering" poor innocent animals.
Nightly they are bombarded by images of gun-toting thugs committing crimes and terrorists committing senseless murder. Most have never handled a gun, and fewer still have ever fired one. They have avoided learning the trust and responsibility that goes with owning and using a firearm. In its place they have developed fear; the fear of firearms as an inescapable token of pain, death, and suffering. And those who do use firearms, in their slanted view, are either glorified heroes (law enforcement and military) or aberrant thugs (everyone else).
Conservation of wildlife is not an ethic born of technological civilization as we have come to define it in this century. One must live for a while in the bare bosom of mother nature to fully understand that death is as much a part of the circle of life as is birth. One must have at one time witnessed beauty and blood woven together inseparably in the tapestry of life in order to appreciate the need to kill animals for the good of all species. Don't bet your last round of ammo that enough of our modern generation will get that experience to preserve a knowledgable conservation heritage. Instead they will fear; fear for the "poor" deer, fear for the "safety" of their children in the presence of armed citizens, fear for the stability of a society "helpless" against crime and terror. Their illusions and delusions will become a false reality against which those who understand will be increasingly hard-pressed to persevere.
We must find some way to educate enough of our people so that a conservation heritage can and does prevail. It will not be easy; more and more of the rural land that fosters learning is being bulldozed, built upon, and plowed under every day. More people demand more houses, more roads, more food, more malls, more energy, and on and on and on. We cannot afford to be pushed 200 yards further away from those who are already on the brink of dangerous ignorance. Until the image of the hunter joins that of the law man and the soldier as welcome members of our society as a whole, we cannot rest nor move further into the woods.
